I feel ill. I hate to be negative about any of the above excitement, really..., and it is excellent that Puppy Linux works on the Intel Classmate and can even be "bundled" with it along with Mandriva Linux. Great. However, let's not kid ourselves here. The Intel Classmate is specifically designed to use Windows XP embedded; that and crushing AMD is what it is all about. Do you really believe that most institutions in most countries will be supplying and using Intel Classmates with Puppy Linux? Nice dream, but it is a fantasy. The Intel Classmate world is a windows world.

The whole point of the Intel Classmate is to steal the market at its seeding stage from the OLPC consortium (which uses an AMD processor in its XO machine, plus open source software). Intel and Microsoft want that identified market too, and they, alas, clearly look like they will get it.

Intel (and Microsoft) laugh, I am sure, as they allow Linux to run on "their" machine, knowing fine that in mass adoption, commercially, it will be running Microsoft closed source software, including Digital Rights Management controls (yes, it comes with that too...). If you buy into this machine, you buy into the closed source model. Here is how Wikipedia compares the two:

"The Windows version [of the Intel Classmate], in contrast to the XO which does not require anything extra, includes a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to provide any local Windows XP Embedded installation with access to hardware-based DRM. This reflects differing goals between the two projects. The Classmate aims to provide "uncompromised technology" that fits into the larger, primarily Windows-based computing environment.[3] Users in this environment learn about the technologies that currently dominate the computer world, but lose some flexibility by using closed-source software. [One Laptop Per Child's alternative:]XO aims [on the other hand] to provide children with a free and open-source software environment they can modify for themselves at no additional cost and that allows them to "learn through doing". "

Anyway, I don't want to say anything to detract from Hacao's great efforts. He has in fact done a great job producing his distribution, and it is good to fight for its use on Intel Classmates (though he can never really hope for more than a tiny tiny tiny slice of that market) - but, it is much more important for the Free and Open Source Software movement in general to clearly back the model that supports open source; and that is the OLPC machine (whatever you may think of it).

Yes, it's a pity, I suppose, that the OLPC consortium chose Red Hat as their Linux version, and not Puppy Linux (is it?). But there are many good Linux distributions (!); the important factor is that they are all open source, which is a philosophy of living as much as a "free" technical resource.

The OLPC never was about any particular hardware platform, these things change all the time, nor is it really concerned with any particular OS distribution, but it does wholly embrace the open-source community-oriented philosophy.

We should embrace and support the OLPC project and reject the commercial invasion of that territory by Intel and Microsoft.

Of course Intel, and Microsoft will happily BUY everyone's souls by saturating the marketplace with shinier, sweeter tasting candy, thrown into the consuming mouths of the techno-pleasure greedy crowds. More drugs for the already addicted.

I feel sorry for the OLPC team; they had the right idea, and had they succeeded would have created a huge open source alternative to the current monopoly. But you can't beat Intel and Microsoft that easily, especially not when even open source enthusiasts don't realise they are being conned and lap up the offerings of the very same organisations that crush and control them. Conquer and Divide. I despair. Shiny toys for the boys is all that it takes to buy them.

At the end of the day it is irrelevant that Puppy Linux can run on an Intel Classmate; it is irrelevant whether or not Puppy Linux becomes the number one Linux on Distrowatch!!! It is irrelevant that OLPC currently adopts Red Hat Linux rather than Puppy Linux. Buy into the OLPC and give open source a chance, no matter what form that open source takes.

Good points, Mc, but I guess you'll have to notice, too, that OLPC had abandoned the GX2-466 in favor of the faster LX700 processor from AMD. Now, this new processor can comfortably run WinXP.

See how OLPC ignored the feasibility of using the GX2-466 (the original processor): Last April 2006, Negroponte complained about "Linux bloat", which created a furor in the Linux community. Barry also took up the challenge by publishing http://www.puppyos.com/olpc/

Quote:

We Puppy enthusiasts were saddened to read of the disappointment of the developers of the OLPC laptop manufacturers, testing Linux, due to the extreme slowness. That was the main catalyst that prompted me to write this page. Okay, we don't have the $2 million to pay like Red Hat, but we do have a system that works well.

With a 433 Mhz CPU you have to expect some delays, however with Puppy the responsiveness is mostly immediate. Everything happens in a fraction of a second, and it feels like a 2GHz CPU running XP.

If OLPC "fails", then its team just picks up another project. Or it can try to do a community-supported project seriously and first learn the basics of community participation._________________Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? Get the sfs (English only).

If OLPC "fails", then its team just picks up another project. Or it can try to do a community-supported project seriously and first learn the basics of community participation.

Yes, I do agree with you that they blundered heavily by not instantly embracing offers of help and involvement from the likes of Barry. They seem to have confused "community decision making" with "committee decision making", the latter being a bit like "too many cooks spoil the broth". Unfortunately, unilaterally deciding upon Red Hat, smacked of closed-source types of decision making, which is a pity, because that is not what OLPC is about, according to its mission statements.

Nevertheless, it is a serious blow to the open-source community, in my opinion, if the Intel/Microsoft option extinguishes OLPC's vision, as it looks like it will. I can forgive them for choosing Red Hat, that decision could have been worse; they could have started off with a deal with the closed-source devil itself.

I can also understand Negroponte's possible fear that every Tom, Dick and Harry (Mary, Ann, or Jean) of the larger community couldn't/wouldn't inherently understand the innovative OLPC theories of learning embodied materially in the "Sugar" interface. No matter what anyone may think of "Sugar" it is conceptually a very different Human Computer Interface from that which we have become indoctrinated with. Microsoft will kill such innovation dead and everyone will be trained, for better or worse, to use computers the traditional Microsoft way. Rather monocultural I would say; that's why I would equate Microsoft's behaviour with colonialism.

. . .
Where is the hardware of the future gonna be produced?
China. Ah yes they use Linux . . .

Anyone seen the future?
Penguinated.

I'm tempted to say more, but I'll let you off!

Anyway, I do feel sick, as it happens. I made the mistake of eating tons of crisps (knowing well that too much salt doesn't go down well with me) - just being a glutton; then I compounded the situation by finding some sugary sweet things and gorged myself on these whilst typing into this forum. I deserve to feel ill now I suppose.

My partner is actively into Animal Rights issues, and there is a new centre concerned with the study of Human-Animal relations at the local university here. So today I've contacted the office of the local Animal Rights group, and also the Professors at the centre for the study of Human-Animal relations, to tell them that using Microsoft products (which they do) sponsors Animal testing and so on. In evidence I gave them examples of several very large biomedical research projects being funded by the Bill and Melinda Gate's Foundation.

I'm interested to hear their response; like many people they have of course become addicted to Microsoft's OS and applications (which are afterall marketed much like a drug). Like addicts, therefore, I suspect they will try to make excuses for themselves in order to continue using the Microsoft offerings they have become accustomed to. Rather emotively I suggested to them that every time they hit a key on the keyboard they were effectively contributing 1 cent to animal experimentation...

It is similar, I suppose, to the problem they may themselves have trying to convince habitual meat-eaters to give up their barbaric practices. Not that I'm saying what my own point of view is, though anything negative I can say against Microsoft suits me fine.

I did of course offer to help them clean up their act with installations of Puppy Linux as an ethical alternative.

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